


Like Real People Do

by MomtherSeries



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Respawn Mechanics, Temp Death, machine!mumbo au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26795695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomtherSeries/pseuds/MomtherSeries
Summary: "Because I bleed!" Mumbo shouted. "I bleed and I cry and I get headaches and I get sick and all these stupid things that make me human!"He tried to rub away some tears forming in his eyes as he continued shouting. "I can't just be a machine all of the sudden! It doesn't make any sense. I can’t be!"(A Collab with @mine-sara-sp on Tumblr)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 130





	Like Real People Do

Iskall was in the middle of working on Sahara with Mumbo when he realized a very important, completely out-of-the-blue fact. 

Iskall had been hanging around Mumbo for _years_ before realizing they had never done a redstone grind together. Sure, they had gone End Busting and raided the Nether together, but they had never once strip mined for redstone. 

“What a waste!” Iskall said out loud, slamming a shulker box down on the ground with much more force then required. 

“What’s a waste?” Mumbo startled, looking at Iskall after his sudden outburst. 

“You are!” Iskall gestured to Mumbo with both arms. The redstoner looked offended, and then a little hurt. 

“Well, I think my skills are valuable and contribute greatly-“

“No, no, no no no,” Iskall cut him off. “You’re a magnet to redstone. You always seem to mine a bazillion shulker boxes-“ 

“It’s easy to find!”

“-and it’s a waste I haven’t gone mining with you. If we go together, you’ll do your weird redstone-attraction thing, and I’ll be set for the season! Plus, I need more for Sahara anyways.” 

“... Do we need to go right now?” 

“Yes,” Iskall said cheerfully, placing his hands on his hips. “I accidentally broke the last repeater I had when I slammed that shulker box down.” 

About fifteen minutes later, Mumbo and Iskall found themselves underground in a long, hollow strip mine. 

“Alright,” Iskall rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get mining! I’ll take the left side, you take the right.” 

“What?” Mumbo asked, scrunching his nose in confusion. “Why?” 

Iskall stared at Mumbo for a moment. 

“So we can spread out and quicken out chances of finding redstone?” Iskall said, suddenly uncertain of his plan. 

“Oh, well there’s a vein three blocks down and to the right,” Mumbo said, pointing in the general area he had just stated. 

“Dude, _what._ ” 

“Can’t you feel it?” Mumbo asked. 

“No! Oh my god, Mumbo,” Iskall squished his friend’s face between his hands. “How much redstone have you inhaled to get this superpower?” 

“Well- I mean- well, you know,” Mumbo stuttered, gesturing wildly. 

“Can you do this for other blocks?” Iskall asked, Mumbo’s face still in his hands. 

Mumbo shook his head. “Just redstone.” 

“That’s insane!” Iskall said with a laugh, dropping his hands. “You might want to get Xisuma to check that out, it doesn’t seem right.” 

“Oh,” Mumbo said, his face falling. It was news to him that other hermits couldn’t detect redstone. Iskall said it was wrong, but Mumbo, from his first memory, could _always_ sense redstone. 

“It’s alright dude,” Iskall said, and threw an arm around Mumbo’s shoulder. “I don’t think it's an immediate health concern. Plus, we still have redstone to get!” 

Iskall patted Mumbo’s chest with his free hand, spun away from him and pulled out his pickaxe in one smooth motion. 

“Let’s get mining!” 

Mumbo agreed nervously and directed Iskall where the nearest vein of redstone was. 

That night, covered in redstone, Mumbo sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his red shulker box. It hummed with power, and mumbo could see the faint outline of the redstone dust wrapped in a bag. He wondered why no one else could see it too. 

——

Grian stood in front of Mumbo’s witch farm, humming to himself. He needed some goldstone (and gunpowder), and decided to borrow some while Mumbo was AFK. The problem was Mumbo was AFK inside the witch farm, which threw a very large wrench in Grian’s plan. 

“I can sneak around while he’s AFK! It’ll be fiiine.” Grian said to himself. “It’s not like he’s awake.” 

With his pep-talk out of the way, Grian opened the door to the farm. He immediately gave a small scream as he came face-to-face with Mumbo, staring directly at him. 

“Oh!” Grian gave a nervous laugh. “Hey Mumbo! I was just coming to borrow some glowstone!” 

Mumbo didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t react at all. Grian frowned. 

“Uh, hello? Mumbo?” The builder waved his hand in front of Mumbo’s face. The redstoner stared on, unblinking. 

“Oh! You’re AFK? Who AFK’s with their eyes open?” Grian asked. Leaning forwards, he frowned.

“Don’t your eyes get dry?” Grian asked. “You really are AFK. I can basically see the loading screen in your brain.” 

Grian scoffed, and stood back. Then he frowned, and leaned forwards. Now that he was looking, there _was_ something in Mumbo’s eyes. It didn’t seem like a reflection, either. As Grian looked closer, he could see three circles ellipsing themselves, moving constantly to create a sphere shape. 

“Huh, it looks like a screensaver,” Grian said, tilting his head and leaning in closer to admire Mumbo’s eyes. 

“Kinda like NPC rebooting...” Grian muttered. He was much too close, their noses almost touching, when Mumbo suddenly blinked, the sphere shrinking and being replaced with a pupil. Grian shrieked and jumped back, but Mumbo didn’t respond for a moment, robotically blinking again before giving his head a small shake, emotion returning to his face. 

“Grian!” He said. “What’re you doing- hey, are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Oh! I, uh,” Grian waved his hands around, trying to come up with an excuse why he had been nose-to-nose with Mumbo. “I was, uh, stealing glowstone?” 

“Oh, you just had to ask.” Mumbo said, unfazed. 

“Wait, do you not…” Grian paused. Mumbo had a terrible poker face, and would tease Grian mercilessly about this interaction. But he wasn’t. It was _almost_ like he wasn’t aware it had happened, which was impossible. 

NPC sometimes takes a few seconds to reboot and never remembers the first 5 seconds of waking up. A rogue thought in Grian’s head provided.

But NPC was a machine, and Mumbo was not, and Grian was a little thrown off by the whole thing. 

“Gri?” Mumbo asked, looking concerned. 

“You know what? I just remembered I had some at home. Bye!” Grian said hurriedly, snatching rockets from his inventory and flying off. 

“What in the world was that?” Grian asked himself, a large frown on his face and worry in his mind. “People don’t need to reboot.” 

——

The more Grian thought about his interaction, the more concerned he became. He knew how robots acted, and Mumbo was not a robot. Uncapping his marker, Grian set to work writing everything down on his large whiteboard. 

_Robotic Traits._ He wrote, underlining the title. 

_Robotic Movements  
Rebooting when AFK or offline  
Monotone or simple emotions  
Overly polite _

Grian paused, and added a smaller bullet point under the last.

_(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)_

He started on his next list, switching to a red marker and drawing an arrow from each robotic point to an explanation of why Mumbo Jumbo couldn’t possibly be a robot.

Mumbo Jumbo

_Robotic Motions - > He’s just lanky and exhausted most of the time  
Rebooting when AFK or offline -> dissociation(?)  
Monotone or simple emotions -> mumbo is deadpan  
Overly Polite -> ???  
(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)_

Grian sighed. His answers weren’t very convincing to anyone, let alone his own paranoia. He had been killed and kidnapped by both NPC Grian and Robot Grian, and he couldn’t get Mumbo’s AFK loading icon out of his head. What if Mumbo wasn’t really a robot, but had been replaced by his own copy? What if this mechanical copy of his friend was trying to overtake the server? What had it done with the real Mumbo?

How long had the real Mumbo been gone for?

“Dude,” Iskall said, breaking Grian out of his spiraling thoughts. “What is… this?” 

“It’s, uh,” Grian paused, trying to think of an explanation. “Well, I think Mumbo has been kidnapped and replaced by an evil machine counterpart.” 

“...What?” Iskall said, letting out a nervous chuckle upon seeing how serious Grian was. 

“No! Seriously!” Grian grabbed Iskall’s shoulders. “Listen, I’ve been replaced by robots many times in my past-” 

“ You Have!?”

“-And I know what they act like! Seriously, Mumbo is always jerky and uncoordinated, just like Robot Grian. He’s suspiciously polite, almost like manners have been programmed into him! Plus I saw him wake up from AFK just a few hours ago, Iskall, it wasn’t natural. He rebooted.” 

Iskall stared at him for a moment, gathering his thoughts. 

“Well,” He finally settled on saying, gently removing Grian’s hands from his shoulders. “That certainly is a theory.” 

“You don’t believe me!” Grian cried, wrapping his arms around his torso, clearly distressed. 

“Woah, woah,” Iskall said, “It’s not that I don’t believe you! It would explain Mumbo’s weird redstone mining.” 

“His what?” 

“He can, like, see it through blocks. It was so strange. He could also feel it when it was deeper,” Iskall said, deep in thought. “It was very useful when we were mining it, but it was very odd.”

“Oh my god, Grian muttered, and sat down on a nearby shulker box. “He’s a machine. Mumbo’s been replaced.” 

“Oh Grian,” Iskall placed a comforting hand on Grian’s back. “Let’s not jump ahead, okay? Why don’t we get more information first?” 

Grian brought his head from his hands and nodded in silent agreement. He just prayed that Mumbo wasn’t suffering like he had. 

\----

Embarrassingly enough, it took Mumbo almost a week to notice Grian’s silence and avoidance of him. No more Sahara meetings were called, and Grian often said the bare minimum to him. Uncomfortable, Mumbo brought it up to Iskall once while they worked on Sahara together. 

“Hey Iskall?”

“Hmm?” his friend responded, chest deep in a shulker box. 

“Is… Is Grian mad at me?” 

Iskall’s head hit the top of the box, and he let out a short curse. “Why would you think that?” 

“I feel like he’s been avoiding me. Since he swung by my witch farm last week, actually.” Mumbo said, frowning. If he said something that made Grian angry or uncomfortable, he wanted to apologize for it. 

“Nah,” Iskall said with a lackluster shrug. If Mumbo had been paying attention he would’ve seen the sweat on Iskall’s brow. “I think he’s just busy.” 

“Oh,” Mumbo said. 

“Speaking of busy,” Iskall stood. “I’ve got to go grab more redstone. I’m out. See you in a bit!” 

“Okay,” Mumbo said, his friend flying off with a wave. 

Biting his lip, Mumbo noticed Iskall left his Redstone shulker box. They had just gone redstone mining a week ago, had Iskall run out that quickly? Mumbo opened the shulker box, not that he needed to, but he hoped the red outline he could see around it would be wrong for once.

He inhaled sharply. 

It was full. 

Sighing, Mumbo closed it. He decided that instead of overthinking why his friends were suddenly ignoring him and lying to him, he’d work on redstone instead. 

Redstone, at least, was easily fixable.

\-----

Cleo stood in front of Sahara, her face scrunched in an unpleasant emotion. Something in the shopping district _stunk_ , and she followed her nose to find out what. It had led her to the redstone part of Sahara, overwhelming her senses. 

It wasn’t a stench that could be smelt by normal hermits. She knew it well, it was her own. It was the stench of magic overworking itself to keep _something_ alive. 

Whatever this magic was keeping alive, it was working very, very hard. 

“Hello?” She called out. “Wow, you guys need an air freshener in this place- oh! Mumbo!” 

“Hello, Cleo!” Mumbo said cheerfully. 

Cleo smiled, watching the redstone-covered hermit approach. Then she frowned. 

“Mumbo, you smell dead.” Cleo said. “Well, not dead. You smell... un-alive.” 

“I- wow. I don’t know what to say.” Mumbo said with an awkward laugh. 

Cleo leaned closer, taking an intense sniff. Mumbo leaned backwards, a little uncomfortable. 

“Yeah. It’s you.” Cleo confirmed. “What’re you working on?” 

“Oh, uh... redstone?” Mumbo said, gesturing to himself, very confused with the whole scenario. His usually neat suit was covered in redstone, the red dust already settled in his hair. 

“Are Grian and Iskall here?” Cleo asked. Mumbo made a face at that. 

“Uh, no, actually. I haven’t seen them in a while.” 

“How long is a while?” Cleo asked, pushing past Mumbo and walking into the redstone circuitry. 

“Oh, uh, maybe two weeks?” Mumbo said, frowning and fiddling with a ring on his finger. 

“Huh,” Cleo said. “It’s because you need a shower.” 

“Excuse me?” Mumbo said. 

“Seriously, you smell like redstone and overheating code.” 

“I showered this morning, thank you!” Mumbo said, a little angry. 

“Then why,” Cleo turned and poked Mumbo in the chest, a small amount of redstone poofing off his suit. “Do you smell like an overheating machine?” 

“I don’t-“ Mumbo stopped talking when Cleo took another long sniff. 

“Mumbo, are you human?” She asked suddenly. 

“What-“ Mumbo was furious. “Yes! Of course I am! God Cleo, what is wrong with you?” 

Mumbo grabbed rockets from his inventory with much more aggression then they probably deserved. He lit one and flew off before Cleo could get another word in, and the Zombie watched him go, unbothered by his words. 

“I guess I should see X,” Cleo muttered to herself, the scent lightening as Mumbo flew away.  
——

NPC Grian usually kept to himself. He had a small plot of land that he had built outside the Hermit’s main map, not to be undiscovered, but to be peaceful. Hermits swinging by to say hello was not uncommon, and Grian came by every week or so to catch him up with whatever chaos had happened. 

NPC was not surprised to hear a knock at his front door on a stormy, Thursday night. Grian often stayed when it stormed. He was a little surprised to see a soaked Mumbo standing at his door instead. 

“Hello, Mumbo Jumbo.” 

“Hey NPC.” Mumbo said, shivering slightly in the rain. “Can I stay here tonight?” 

“Of course,” NPC said, stepping to the side and letting the redstoner in. As Mumbo passed, a line of stats popped into NPC’s view, as it did for all hermits. 

Name: Mumbo Jumbo  
Species: Machine  
Level: 54  
Health: 20/20  
Staus: Online  
Role: Player

“Thanks. Sorry for invading, I needed somewhere without any Hermits.” Mumbo apologized. 

“I understand,” NPC said, handing Mumbo a blanket and a towel. Mambo smiled appreciatively, taking the towel and scrunching his hair dry. The dark, normally neat locks fell around his face, highlighting how pale Mumbo actually was. 

“Sometimes humans get a little overwhelming,” NPC smiled, and Mumbo paused, a confused look coming over his face. NPC waited for his response. 

“Uh, yeah.” Mumbo finally settled on saying, removing his suit jacket. “I guess we can.”

 _We?_ NPC filed the way Mumbo had used that language away. 

“Would you like some tea?” NPC offered instead, guiding Mumbo to the couch.

“Oh, yes please.” Mumbo said, all but collapsing into the cushions. The large fireplace in front of him was flickering, the fire strong but not overpowering. 

NPC didn’t say anything while he made two cups of camomile tea, letting the clinking of cups and the whisper of the fire fill the air. Mumbo seemed much more relaxed by the time NPC came in, wrapped in blankets and eyes half-lidded. 

“Your tea,” NPC said, offering the mug. Mumbo reached to grab it. “Careful not to spill it, you’ll fry yourself.”

Mumbo paused, retracting his hands. “Fry?”

“Your circuits,” NPC said, as if it was common knowledge, and he shoved the mug into Mumbo’s hands.

“I don’t have circuits?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused. “You sound like Cleo. She said I smelt like an overheating machine.” 

NPC hummed at that, realizing a few things at once. 

One: Mumbo has been confronted by Zombie Cleo about his origin, and most likely ran away from that conversation if the knock at my door meant anything.  
Two: Mumbo’s friends are starting to realize he might not be human.  
Three: Mumbo does not realize that he is not human.  
Four: Mumbo Jumbo must be malfunctioning if he is unaware that he is a machine. 

A reset should fix that problem. 

“Mumbo,” NPC said and sat next to him. If Mumbo thought he was human, NPC would have to treat him like that. “What made Zombie Cleo think that?”

Mumbo scoffed. “She said that I smelt ‘un-alive’ and like a ‘machine’. And redstone. That one was probably true though. It’s just like Grian the other day! He came over to get glowstone while I was AFK, and when I woke up he was a few feet away and super flushed. He said something about rebooting, and then flew off before grabbing glowstone!” 

NPC took the mug from Mumbo’s hands as the redstoner got more animated when speaking. 

“Oh! And then Iskall! We went redstone mining and he said he couldn’t see the redstone under the blocks, but he must be able too, because he always has lots of redstone too! He acted the whole trip like he didn’t know where it was, which, frankly, it just rude. Now Grian and Iskall have been ignoring me!” 

Mumbo huffed and sat back. NPC handed him his mug again, and Mumbo took a very long sip. 

“Thank you, NPC.” Mumbo finally said after a minute. “For listening. And also the tea.”

“Of course,” NPC said with a gentle smile. “Can I suggest a solution?” 

“You have one?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused. 

“Of course. You just need a reset.”

“Not you too! Now you’re talking to me with weird machine terms that I know you don’t use those with Grian!”

NPC frowned. It was worse than he thought. 

“That is because Grian is not a machine.”

Mumbo stared at him a moment, before placing his mug down and standing abruptly. 

“Thank you, NPC. I have to go.” Mumbo headed towards the door when a strong grip caught his wrist. NPC tightened it as Mumbo struggled against it. 

“Mumbo, when you get to respawn, don’t restart right away.” 

“NPC, let me go!”

“Listen to me,” NPC said. “Don’t respawn right away. Just wait until you feel ready.”

“I don’t control respawn!” Mumbo said, his voice rising in fear. He desperately tried to break NPC’s grip, but his exterior was not made of metal as the builder’s was. 

“Good luck, Mumbo Jumbo.” NPC said, and summoned a sword into his hand. 

“NPC, no-!”

**< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >**

——

Mumbo reached the void and was filled with panic. Immediately he went to hit the large, looming ‘Respawn’ button out of muscle memory. Right as his fingers brushed the lettering, he stopped. 

He stayed still and waited as if he expected some invisible force to push his hand on the button, but nothing happened. 

He always thought he had to respawn immediately, but here he was, hand hovering over the option as time ticked on. 

The other hermits just woke up in their beds, he was sure of that. He moved his hand from the looming button, and took a deep breath. 

Something else to add to the list of odd things about himself. 

NPC said he could wait until he felt better, right? Besides, he had a lot to think about. Iskall and Grian were ignoring him anyways, and he didn’t really want to see Cleo or NPC. He could just wait a few minutes and collect his thoughts. Nothing bad could possibly happen, he was already dead. 

He’d just stay here for a while. Just enough to collect his thoughts. Then he’d go back. 

Just a few minutes.

Just a few... 

\----

Xisuma had never felt so much anxiety in his life. Having been an Admin for ten or so years, he was pretty adept at solving all problems. Evil counterpart destroying the server? Xisuma could deal with it. Bugs and code problems? He could do it in his sleep. 

A server player being killed and not respawning for two days despite there being no bugs and his code being perfect? Xisuma was out of luck. 

“God damn it!” He swore, covering his face in his hands and inhaling sharply. The line of code he had run had failed to bring Mumbo back, the redstoner still being stuck in respawn void. 

Mumbo had been quite a character in Xisuma’s last few weeks. Iskall had come first, worried about Mumbo’s health when the man could apparently sense redstone through solid blocks. A few days later Grian had swung by, babbling feverishly that Mumbo had been replaced by a robot and was up to nothing good. 

Xisuma had brushed both off with a gentle smile and a ‘I’ll look into it, thanks for letting me know’. 

He wasn’t able to ignore when Cleo walked through his door three days ago, claiming Mumbo smelt un-alive. This very much caught Xisuma’s attention, and he sat her down to get her to explain everything. 

Only an hour later the death message had come across his screen. 

**< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >**

_Grian whispered to Xisuma: See! Even NPC realized Mumbo was replaced! Or worse, NPC is orchestrating the entire thing. Wouldn’t be the first time._

Xisuma left a concerned Cleo, teleporting immediately to Mumbo’s spawn point, waiting anxiously for the redstoner to reappear. 

He waited. 

And waited. 

Xisuma sent a message to Mumbo. 

Waited some more. 

And then realized something was very wrong, teleported to his base and started working on Mumbo’s code. 

“Okay, another try. Then a break.” Xisuma muttered to himself. He had been awake for too long, but he needed to figure out what was wrong for Mumbo not to respawn. He couldn’t have the other Hermits panicking if something was wrong with respawn.

A gentle knock at his door brought Xisuma out of his thoughts. Standing and stretching, Xisuma walked over to the door, and opened it to find NPC Grian. He immediately took a step back. Grian’s messages creeping in the back of his mind.

“NPC Grian! It’s... good to see you.” Xisuma smiled trying to look friendly, and forgetting for the most part his helmet didn’t show his mouth. “It’s been a while.” 

“Indeed it has, Xisuma Void.” NPC said, as emotionless as always. “May I come in?” 

“Oh! Actually it’s not really a good moment,” He muttered closing the door slightly “There’s just a huge mess, I’ve been-“ 

“Trying to bring Mumbo Jumbo back from respawn?” NPC interrupted. 

“... Yes, actually.” Xisuma said, a little wary. 

“There's no point in forcing him back.” NPC leaned in closer and patted Xisuma’s shoulder. “He’ll come back when he wants to.” 

“Sorry,” Xisuma asked, confused. “But how do you know this?” 

“Because he is like me.” NPC said. “If you need him back sooner, I can go get him.” 

Xisuma decided to ignore the first part of NPC’s statement and the suspicions around him. He opened the door and let the robot come in. “Would you go get him? Everyone’s worried.” 

“Of course. Set Mumbo Jumbo’s spawn point here-“ NPC put down two beds, and gestured to the bed on the right. “And I will set mine here. Then, kill me.” 

Xisuma took a moment to fully digest the plan. 

“And then what?” 

“Well, then I will talk to Mumbo Jumbo and bring him back.” 

“Oh,” Xisuma said, grateful for the apparently easy solution put before him. He was exhausted and decided that NPC was his best shot at this point even if there was the chance it might be a trap or something. If NPC tried to take over the server like Ex did he could deal with that later. He had already tried fixing every line of code of Mumbo’s, and he had nothing to lose. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, and I already set my respawn.” NPC said.

Xisuma nodded, and brought up Mumbo’s code again. He changed the respawn to the nearby bed, and then closed the menu, drawing out a sword. 

“Are you ready?” Xisuma asked. 

NPC nodded. 

**< NPC_Grian was slain by Xisumavoid >**

\--  
Being dead wasn't so bad. 

Well, he wasn't really dead right now. Dead in the overworld, maybe, but not dead here, even if it wasn't clear where here was. 

Was it respawn void? It didn't really matter.

Strangely, Mumbo felt better and better the more he stayed there, suspended into nothing with the looming respawn button hovering not too far away from him. 

It was odd, resting here. Mumbo felt as if he had taken the longest sleep. Compared to how he usually slept, it felt like he had never once truly rested in his life up until that point. 

Mumbo felt rejuvenated, his mind sharp like he could go and rebuild all the machines in Sahara from the ground up in a week. 

Strange how NPC was right apparently. 

Just about respawn. Mumbo reminded himself.

There must be some other explanation for all the weird things going on. Regardless of all the strange things that had happened, he wasn't a machine. 

Mumbo would have noticed, it's not like he was born a week ago.

The redstoner felt ready to go back to the server, even if he would have had to talk with Grian and Iskall about why they were avoiding him. Also talk with Cleo… Maybe she was just having a weird zombie flu? It’s the only reason Mumbo could come up with for why she was smelling weird stuff. 

It was okay, it was just a weird couple of weeks! It happens. 

Mumbo looked at the button ready to press it. He reached out and - wait. 

Didn't he use to have fingers and hands? 

He would have blinked but he realized he didn't have any eyes that needed blinking. He didn't have a mouth to speak, ears to hear anything, arms or legs. 

He should have been terrified, but strangely enough something very, very deep in his mind felt almost comfortable with this sudden realization. 

Which, arguably, was the really terrifying part. 

He was reduced to… nothing? No, he was still something. He wasn't sure what. He felt immense but not really, like he'd always been wearing something too tight and only now he could finally stretch out. 

His body…

His body didn't fit what he actually was. 

What was he? 

He was human! Right? Right?! 

This void was just messing with his head. It must be--

"Are you ready to come back yet?” A familiar monotone voice spoke. 

\--

Xisuma watched the beds with bated breath. A few minutes passed and panic filled his chest, quickly becoming overwhelming. 

“Shit,” Xisuma said, pulling up the Admin menu again. Fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard, Xisuma didn’t even know where to begin. Should he access NPC’s code first? Try and drag him back? But it hadn’t worked on Mumbo, and NPC was not a traditional player. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to enter any code, as NPC and Mumbo respawned on the bed. NPC sat up and gave Xisuma a monotone thumbs up while Mumbo clutched his chest and rolled to his side, coughing. 

“Mumbo!” Xisuma rushed to his side, rubbing his friends back.

“He’s alright,” NPC said. “It takes a moment to adjust back into a body. I go through it too after extended time in respawn. Being a machine forced into a flesh cage is very difficult sometimes.”

“I don’t…” Xisuma said, brain blanking after that information. “Okay, I’m going to ignore that. How do you spend so much time in respawn?”

“Machines are not affected the same way humans are.” NPC said.

“Shut up!” Mumbo wheezed, and pushed Xisuma away, stumbling from the bed. “I’m not a machine! Stop saying I am!” 

“But you are.” NPC said, almost sounding confused. 

“Okay,” Xisuma said, reaching towards Mumbo. “Regardless if you are, are you okay?”

“Regardless?” Mumbo squeaked, voice rising in anger. “Xisuma, you can’t be siding with them! Everyone has been treating me weird and now he says I'm a machine, and I’m not!” 

“Mumbo-”

“No! There’s no proof! Everyone is just imagining things!”

NPC sighed, and brought up Mumbo’s code, displaying it for everyone to see.

_Name: Mumbo Jumbo  
Species: Machine  
Level: 1  
Health: 20/20  
Staus: Online  
Role: Player_

“You get very different stats than me. ” Xisuma said. “But that doesn’t matter- It’s okay, Mumbo. Not everyone on the server is human. Hell, I’m barely human myself.” 

“No,” Mumbo muttered to himself. “No! It’s not right!”

"Why can't it be that you're not hum-" 

"Because I bleed!" Mumbo shouted. "I bleed and I cry and I get headaches and I get sick and all these stupid things that make me human!" 

He tried to rub away some tears forming in his eyes as he continued shouting. "I can't just be a machine all of the sudden! It doesn't make any sense. I can’t be!" 

There was silence, and for a moment no one knew what to say. The only sound was Mumbo's erratic breathing, muffled slightly by the hands covering his face.

Then NPC stepped over and patted Mumbo on the shoulder, which felt almost mocking. 

"Silly! All those things only mean your body is human. Being a machine goes a little bit deeper." 

Mumbo’s hands dropped, and the man looked exhausted. 

“Mumbo,” Xisuma took a step closer, and Mumbo took a step back, hitting a wall. Uncertainty and confusion flitted across his face. “Please. Mumbo, not being human doesn’t lessen your worth. We still love you.”

There was a long silence, and finally Mumbo leaned against the wall, sliding to the ground and placing his head onto his knees. Xisuma sat beside him, hesitating for only a moment before pulling Mumbo into a side hug. 

“I hate this.” Mumbo muttered. 

“I know.” Xisuma said. 

“It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“I know.” 

“I am human. I have a human body, NPC said so. I am human.” Mumbo said, sounding unconvincing to even himself. 

“It will be okay, Mumbo.” Xisuma said, praying that it would. 

Mumbo said nothing, hoping with all his heart that tomorrow, when he woke up, it would be nothing but a feverish dream. That he had worked on redstone a little too hard for a little too long and had fallen into some strange lucid dream. Mumbo felt Xisuma rub his arm lightly, the up and down movements calming. 

“It’ll be okay.” He said again.

Mumbo had no choice but to trust him.


End file.
